Today's announcement that Ring of Honor finally has a Canadian home on Fight Network came a little out of the blue, but both parties will admit that it was a deal a long time in the making.

How long? Chad Midgley, VP of Fight Network, figures that discussions have been going "on and off" for three years. "It got serious in the last month or so with Joe [Koff], and it came pretty quickly," he said.

Ring Of Honor COO Joe Koff confirmed the timeline. "We've been talking about it for a little bit of time now, and I think it was just a matter of both parties coming to an agreement as to when the right time to start with," Koff said.

Midgley said there wasn't any particular reason for holdup.

"It's tough to say. You can look at a million different things from budgets to other opportunities to just viewer feedback on things people wanted to see," said Midgley. "It wasn't really a specific reason why we were holding back. It just wasn't the right time, and now it is."

The Ring of Honor TV program is currently seen in the U.S. on a national basis on COMET TV, as well on as a host of Sinclair Broadcasting stations -- the parent company of ROH. Since ROH started in 2004, its TV program has not had a national clearance in Canada; fans with access to U.S. stations airing the show (like Buffalo's WUTV Channel 29) were in luck, and others had to find other sources for their ROH fix. The progress of online streaming has provided another option for fans.

Fight Network will air ROH on Tuesday nights at 11 p.m. ET, following its broadcast of TNA Impact Wrestling.

It's part of building a Tuesday night block, said Midgley. "We've identified Tuesday as a night that we wanted to brand a really good wrestling night, more of a domestic wrestling night," he said. "Once we identified Tuesday night and it worked with the TNA schedule, we started to look for other things that would fit. Another reason that we did approach ROH now is that TNA has been doing so well for us in the ratings that we thought we'd explore some more wrestling content, and ROH naturally was the next one that we wanted. We worked with Joe, we know that they air it the next Thursday online, so we wanted to have a little bit of a window to get it on ahead of it being out there online." In May 2015, ROH served as the lead-in to TNA on Destination America, and now the lineup is reversed.

If Tuesdays are domestic, then Thursdays will be internationally-flavoured on Fight Network, though all of that hasn't been sorted out said Midgley.

ROH is always open to international growth, said Koff. "We just came off of France, where we did a run on Equipe 21. We get inquiries all the time from the international markets. I think our product is beginning to take hold as a true product, wrestling product, for what we are able to put forth in the ring. And I think it's that artistic integrity and I think it's the talent and the athleticism of our guys that are catching notice across the world. Obviously, being on our North American neighbour just pleases us to no end, because we have access and we get there. But we run tours in England and we have interest from other countries now to bring the shows there. I think people are starting to take serious notice of what our product is all about, and it's very authentic. I think it's because of that authenticity that makes us want to be watched."

There is a certain magic to the live ROH product, and Koff and Midgley both see more Canadian shows for the promotion in the future.

"Toronto has always been a very, very good Ring of Honor city, maybe because of its proximity to Buffalo or whatever, I'm not quite sure," said Koff. "But even prior to [Sinclair] taking over, Toronto was always a very strong market for us, one of our best. We've had inquiries recently from other provinces in Canada. I think this Fight Network airing will help in certainly getting our product more exposed in those markets, and hopefully we can work with promoters to bring the product up to Canada. We love being in Canada, so if this helps us get to that point, then that would be fantastic."

Midgley had heard about ROH's hot shows -- both in the ring and in temperature in the steamy Ted Reeve Arena in Toronto's east end -- and listened to his advisers. "The success is here is definitely something that pushed us to towards getting that done quicker."

Unlike in the past, where there were a number of Canadians on the roster in prominent positions -- Kevin Steen (now Kevin Owens) and El Generico (now Sami Zayn) headlined two different ROH Final Battle iPPVs, for example -- ROH is a little light on Canadian talent at the moment. Most obvious is Kyle O'Reilly of British Columbia, and Steve Corino is originally born in Winnipeg, but grew up in Philadelphia. Michael Elgin, a former ROH World champion, is still on the roster, but has signed a deal with New Japan Pro Wrestling and expects to spend much of the next year wrestling there.

"I'd love to see more Canadians," said Midgley. "I do know that guys like Eric Young in TNA were great for us to have around. He worked on multiple channels for us at times. He was a good face. The more Canadians the better. Who knows, maybe this forces them to go out and get a couple of more Canadians on the roster."

Koff tries not to see nationality. "Michael Elgin's part of our roster. He's having a very good run in Japan right now. We're happy for him. Some of our other Canadian roster guys moved on to other promotions, which we're always very proud of," Koff explained. "But I think it's a style of wrestling. I don't think it's necessarily nationality-driven. I think it's our style of wrestling and I think it compliments what the Fight Network's trying to put together. We're just happy to be part of it, really proud, actually, to be part of it."